Emmanuelle Vagnon, CNRS (LAMOP), Université Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne
Mappae mundi, which are representations of the entire known world in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, display a geographical image based on certain scientific principles inherited from Antiquity, while depicting the history of the world and of humanity since its origins.
These images of the medieval world may have also an eschatological meaning, in which space and the relative position of places include a temporal and spiritual dimension. We propose here to compare the visual frame of this geo-history through some emblematic world maps of the 11th and 12th centuries.
Taking as a starting point the map contained in the manuscript of Saint-Sever of the Commentary on the Apocalypse of Beatus of Liébana (11th century), we will analyze the evolution of this geographical representation in other maps and texts of the 12th century.
We will show how these world maps are rational constructions of space as well as a meditation on the evangelization of the world and the expectation of the end of time, some of these themes having an echo in Romanesque painting and sculpture.